by Ben Follows
On the night The Compound agents were spotted, they met at the bar and Keelan laid out the photographs of Jake's pursuers. “Recognize them?”
Jake looked at the pictures. They showed a man and woman wearing casual clothing, walking separately, glancing into stores. However, they never went inside the stores, purchased anything, or spoke to anyone. The woman was tall, with short blonde hair. The man was shorter and thicker, with a brown crew cut. It would be easy to mistake them as just having returned from military duty, although neither wore any insignia that would identify them as such.
“So what do we need to do?” asked Keelan.
“We need to capture them in a way that doesn’t allow them to retire themselves once they know they’re caught.”
“Drug them?” Thompson suggested.
“It seems like we’ll have to,” said Keelan.
“Where can we take them?” said Jake.
“There’s an FBI safe house nearby,” said Thompson. “We can take them there.”
“Perfect.” Keelan stood and left the room without any other reaction.
Chapter 45
Cassandra Niles was beginning to suspect something wasn’t quite right with the assignment. There was something about Jake Lavelle, the man she had been sent to retire, that seemed off. It was more than just the fact that he seemed to be making no effort at hiding. It was that he didn’t even seem worried. It had been too easy to track him down. Something wasn’t right.
Brett Janson, her partner, had disagreed when she brought it up. “You heard what the director said. Harold told us he was dead, and then Harold shows up dead. Jake probably just thinks that he’s free and clear, that we all think he’s dead. He isn’t suspecting anything.”
They were sitting in their suite at the Hilton, eating a room service meal of pasta and expensive steaks. All on The Compound’s budget, of course.
“I think we need to keep an eye on him,” said Cassandra. “He’s up to something.”
“You’re being paranoid. Eat your food. It’ll get cold.”
Chapter 46
Jake and Keelan moved through the hallway of the twentieth floor of the hotel. A joint task force of FBI agents and Keelan’s men followed them. They were as silent as possible as they approached the suite doors.
Keelan’s men had tracked the agents the previous night to this hotel room. Thompson had arrived at the hotel that morning, explaining he needed the twentieth floor cleared out as much as possible for the FBI to arrest some high-priority suspects. The hotel had obliged, and the floor had been completely emptied save for the suite in which the agents were staying.
Thompson was still waiting in the lobby with another team of FBI agents and a truck.
Keelan and Jake split the team and went into the two suites on either side of the target room. Teams with large suitcases followed them in. As silent as possible, they moved to the wall the room shared with that of their targets, detached the vent from the wall, and attached a tube from the case to the ventilation system.
“On my count,” said Keelan quietly in his ear. “Three, two, one, go!”
They turned on the machine, and it hummed to life. It was quiet but noticeable if they were listening. It started pumping knock-out gas into the suite. They only had to hope it would be fast enough.
“Look, Cassandra,” Brett said, “let it go. This is a basic retirement mission. You’re overthinking it.”
Cassandra twisted up her face. “Do you smell something?”
“Are you feeling all right, Cass? You look a little under the weather. You might have food poisoning.”
Cassandra pitched forward, and her face smashed into the pasta remaining on her plate, splashing it all around and onto Brett.
“Shit,” said Brett, only now realizing that he could smell something odd. “Well, it was nice working with you,” he said.
Brett bit down as hard as he could and felt his back right molar falling off, letting the poison flow down his throat just as he began losing consciousness.
Jake kicked down the door to the room, wearing a gas mask, gun raised in case the two agents were still awake.
They weren’t; both had fallen forward and gotten much more familiar with their meals.
“Check them,” Jake said, and a few FBI agents walked up to check their vital signs.
“This one’s dead,” said the agent, checking the pulse of the man. “Poison. Yep, that tooth you talked about is missing.”
“The other one?”
“She’s alive, but barely.” The FBI agent lifted up her head, opening her mouth and looking in like a dentist. “Tooth is still intact.”
Jake breathed a sigh of relief. “Bring them both down to the car downstairs. Make sure she stays drugged and unconscious until we can make sure she can’t bite down.”
“Yes, sir.”
The two agents were put on stretchers and taken out of the hotel.
Keelan stepped up beside Jake as the bodies were taken away. “Phase one complete.”
“Now we just have to worry about The Compound sending an army after us.”
Keelan smiled, a strange display of emotion from the usually stoic man. “Are you kidding? That would be amazing.”
Chapter 47
A few hours later, Jake, Keelan, and Thompson stood in the viewing room at the FBI safe house. Cassandra Niles sat on the other side of a two-way mirror, her hands tied behind her back. Her expression was defiant, but her eyes darted back and forth.
Jake knew as well as any of them that agents of The Compound were not trained in interrogation techniques. They were trained never to be in a situation that needed them.
The FBI had designed a dental mouthpiece similar to a retainer, which was presently on the top of Cassandra’s mouth. It allowed her to talk but not to close her teeth all the way, making her speech sound awkward and uneven.
The door to the viewing room opened, and a gray-haired woman wearing a green suit entered.
Thompson turned to her respectfully. “Mrs. Landy, Thank you so much for coming. We’re making progress.”
“That’s good to hear," said Landy. "Director Johnson is very interested in this case and is keeping an eye on it. Have these two signed confidentiality forms?”
“No, it was part of our deal.”
“Are they trustworthy?”
Jake didn’t like being talked about like he wasn’t there, but he said nothing.
“Yes,” said Thompson. “I think so.”
“Good enough,” said Landy, glancing over Keelan and Jake. “In that case, Mr. Lavelle, Mr. Ochre, I’d like to introduce myself. I am Kathryn Landy, the director of the FBI’s Boston division. Thank you for your assistance.”
Jake shook her hand, but Keelan just nodded.
“So,” said Kathryn Landy, “what’s the plan to get her to talk?”
Jake shrugged. “The best way: tell her the truth and explain the situation she’s in.”
Landy frowned. “Are you sure?”
“If it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.”
“You’ve all spoken about this?”
Keelan nodded almost imperceptibly, and Thompson advocated the method. Landy gave them the go-ahead. She would be watching from behind the glass.
Jake entered the room and felt Cassandra’s glare piercing through him. They had gotten her name from her personal effects and her suitcase.
Jake took the seat opposite her and made a point of looking through a folder. Cassandra’s mouthpiece looked ridiculous, but it was effective.
“Fuckin’ traitor,” said Cassandra, her voice surprisingly clear.
“I can see how you might think that,” said Jake. “But it’s more complex than that.”
“That’s what traitors say. If I could spit with this fuckin’ thing, I would, right at you. It’s never more complex than that. Traitors get all complicated in their rationalizations.”
“They killed the only people I’ve ever considered family.”
/>
“What are you talking about? We are your family!” She cut off abruptly, as though realizing there were more than just Jake listening. "How much did you tell them?”
“Everything.”
“Why? We loved you. We raised you. We are your family.”
“The Compound is going to fall. It’s going to end. I’m going to make certain of it.”
“Because the same things happened to you that happen to all of us? We all kill our roommates, Jake. We all lose friends and loved ones to self-imposed retirements. It’s how the world works.”
Jake jumped out of his chair and smashed his hand on the table. “No, it isn’t!”
Cassandra leaned back, smirking. He could hear movement behind the glass.
Jake took a deep breath and sat down. She had baited him into making a rookie mistake.
“Listen, Cassandra, or whatever name you prefer—“
“Cassandra.”
Jake took a map of North America from the folder. “You need to tell me where The Compound is, and then we can start negotiating.”
Cassandra shook her head. “Jake, you don’t get it, do you? You don’t deserve to be an agent. I’m willing to die in a moment’s notice for The Compound. You really think there is anything you can give me that will change my mind? This is how I’ve lived my life. I know what it has to offer, and I choose The Compound and my family. Get it through your head. We aren’t good. We aren’t evil. We are the only thing we’ve ever had the chance to be. We just are.”
Jake swallowed, realizing that she was repeating the words that Sarah had told him the morning she died. It was a phrase he had never heard at the academy. He wondered where it had come from.
“We’re keeping you here, Cassandra, and you will come to see my point of view.”
Cassandra just stared at him and said, “The moment I get this thing off my mouth, it won’t matter.”
Jake left the interrogation room and joined the others in the viewing room.
“Well,” said Thompson. “That could have gone better.”
“Thanks,” said Jake.
Landy put a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “You could have done better, but she wasn’t talking. We’ll keep her overnight and not give her any food. See if she starts talking when she realizes she’s going to starve.”
“Isn’t that illegal?” said Jake.
“She doesn’t exist in any computer database,” said Landy, grinning in a way that looked out of place on her motherly features. “Who will know?”
Thompson walked over to them. “Get some rest, Jake. We’ll try again tomorrow.”
“The plan is useless if we don’t get this.”
Thompson nodded, then walked past him and out the door.
Landy followed. Only Keelan and Jake were left.
“What now?” asked Jake.
Keelan shrugged and said nothing before exiting the room.
Jake looked in at Cassandra. She was trying to maneuver her hands into a position that would allow her to get the mechanism off her face. She wasn’t making any progress, but the point was made. In no universe was Cassandra going to tell them where The Compound was. They could torture her, starve her, isolate her, but she wasn’t going to talk.
Jake had always thought the lack of interrogation training tactics was because The Compound didn’t want anyone risking getting caught, but he realized it was something else. The willingness to die for The Compound made it pointless. You couldn’t threaten their family or their country, you couldn’t negotiate with them, you couldn’t win. In their minds they were already dead and were just enjoying the brief time before reality caught up.
Jake left the FBI offices with a heavy heart, and it wasn’t until he made it back to his hotel room that he remembered he still had Harold’s phone.
He picked it up and weighed it in his hand. It was completely untraceable, not even by the agents at The Compound, and there were only three numbers that had ever been called. One was the number of Agent Thompson, one was a Crescent Point area code that Jake assumed was Janet’s number, and the third was a number he didn’t know.
He sat on the edge of the bed and stared down at it, trying to think of another way. Cassandra wasn’t going to talk, and there was no other way he could think of to find The Compound.
He hit the “call” button and put the phone to his ear, shocked that he could hear it ringing over the beating of his heart. He thought of Doug.
He tried to look away, but Doug was always there in his mind. There was nowhere to look where he wasn’t there.
He could imagine the director looking at his Caller ID and seeing Harold’s number, staring at it for a few moments before—
“Hello? Harold?”
Jake had to take a deep breath before he was able to speak. The deep voice of the director was loud in his ear, the voice he remembered telling him to kill Doug less than a month earlier, the voice from his nightmares.
“No,” he said. “This is Jake Lavelle. I need to speak with you.”
“Jake? What is this about? Where are Cassandra and Brett?”
“The FBI has Cassandra, and Brett has retired himself.”
“Why haven’t you retired yourself? Harold told me you failed the mission.”
“Harold betrayed us. He lied. I accomplished the mission.”
There was a pause. “Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know, sir. I believe he had a relationship with a local woman and was planning to run off with her after his own retirement. So I retired him.”
“He told us you betrayed The Compound.”
“It was part of his plan.”
There was another pause. “Frank Tanners is dead? As well as anyone who might have known of his association with us?”
“Yes.”
There was another long paused, and Jake was worried the director had seen through his lie.
“Where are you?” said the director. “I’ll send a helicopter tomorrow to bring you back here. You can give me the full story.”
“Boston, sir.”
“Good. There is a private airfield just outside Boston.” The director gave him the directions. “A helicopter will be there at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. All weapons and electronics will be taken from you, and you will be drugged until you arrive at The Compound. Is that understood?”
“Understood, sir.”
“Then I will speak to you tomorrow. I hope what you say is true, Jake. I had high hopes for you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The call ended, and Jake sat on the edge of the bed, his heart in his mouth, staring at the phone. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the phone had exploded at that moment, but it didn’t. He didn’t dare using this phone to call Thompson, so he grabbed the burner cell phone he’d been using.
“Hello?” Thompson answered groggily, as though he’d just woken up. “Who is this?”
“This is Jake. I just spoke to the director of The Compound.”
“You what?” Thompson was suddenly awake, and Jake could hear him apologizing to someone else in the room, probably his wife. “Give me one second.” Sounds of footsteps and a door closing. “Okay, tell me exactly what happened? Tell me everything.”
Jake recounted the entire conversation, and when he was finished the sounds of Thompson making notes came through the phone.
“Good work, Jake. What do you need?”
“They’re going to drug me. I won’t be able to tell you where the compound is. You need to track where they take me, either through satellites or aircraft or spies following in unmarked vehicles. Can you do that?”
“We’ll do our best.”
“That isn’t good enough.”
“We’ll do it.”
“That’s better. I won’t call you in the morning, and I won’t have this phone on me. Assume I will be at the airfield at six thirty. Don’t make contact with me. They might be watching already.”
“Jake, I know how this works. This isn’t my fir
st rodeo.”
Jake nodded. “Well, in a way it’s mine. Good luck.”
Chapter 48
Dimitri paced the room tirelessly, walking back and forth through the living room of the house they had rented. Paul sat on the couch watching television, flicking between news programs and reruns of different sitcoms. They were in a farmhouse on the outskirts of Maine, hiding out until the attention wore down.
“Dimitri,” said Paul. “You’re stressing me out. Sit down and relax. Everything is going to be fine. We can talk about our next move tomorrow.”
“Why hasn’t Cuminskey called us?” said Dimitri, only stopping his pacing for a moment. “He seems to have just agreed to whatever we were saying. That isn’t him. I told you that before we ever bought that factory. He’s tough. He will fight to the end. So why the hell hasn’t he made another move?”
Paul shrugged. “Maybe he just understands that we are in control of the situation.”
"He’s smarter than that.”
“Look,” said Paul, putting the remote down on the side of the couch and turning to look at him. “We need to lay low for a while. Forget about it for now.”
“We need to go on offense.”
“We’ve been on nothing but offense.”
“I’m in charge here, Paul.”
Paul stood up and turned off the television, cutting off the news reporter. “You’re in charge? You would be nowhere without me. Literally nowhere without my money. This is a joint effort; that was what we always agreed on. Us, and Dirk to lay the blame for the factory explosion on. Now fuck off.”
Dimitri laughed. “You just don’t get it. You’re nothing but your money. Nothing else.”
“Well, you know what? Only I can access that money, so tough shit.”
Dimitri laughed. “I had it all transferred over to my account yesterday.”
Paul turned sharply. “What?”
Dimitri was holding a gun, which he had taken from the back of his pants. “This was always part of the plan, Paul. You just weren’t allowed to know. This is my triumph, not yours.”