Reckoning

by J. B. Turner

  Mahoney picked up the glass of whiskey and knocked it back in one. He grimaced and took a couple of gulps of beer. “Christ Almighty.”

  Nathan sat down across from him. He knocked back the whiskey and also gulped some of the beer. He leaned in close. He could see the fear in Mahoney’s eyes in fine detail. As if everything he had accomplished and achieved amounted to nothing. The family he loved, disintegrating. His reputation in ruins.

  “So is . . . ? I don’t know, this doesn’t seem right.”

  “Relax. And listen to me. Now that we’ve established a few basics, I want to talk further about what the people that hired me want to happen to you.”

  Mahoney closed his eyes.

  “The people who hired me want you dead. They will not be happy until you are dead. Now, the first part of the operation, that was my idea. And my bosses bought it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The plan went better than I had imagined. A girl was found unconscious on your sofa, a generous sprinkling of coke on her T-shirt if I remember.”

  “You did that?”

  “Not important. What is important is that you’re still alive, and you have a choice.”

  Mahoney knocked back the rest of the Heineken and shook his head, clearly struggling to take it all in. Possibly even in shock.

  Nathan leaned in closer, his voice barely a whisper. “They want you to kill yourself. Failing that, I was tasked with assisting with your death. Do you understand what that means?”

  Mahoney shook his head.

  “They want you to have an accident, maybe a fall.”

  “Oh Christ.”

  “Keep it down. Like I said, that’s what they want. And I’ve done this sort of thing many times. It’s no big deal for me. I’m in town to make sure this happens. The first stage of the operation they believe was a backup. That’s what I persuaded them it was. As I say, we have incriminating pictures. I’m assuming you haven’t told your wife or employer.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “I don’t blame you. No wife would understand that. And no employer would either. Do you see how easy it was?”

  Mahoney nodded.

  Nathan ordered another two bottles of beer. “This isn’t personal. It’s just . . . well, your work is now coming into conflict with the interests of my client.”

  Mahoney stared.

  “I think you know what I’m talking about.”

  “Crichton?”

  Nathan nodded. “You’re investigating the death of the senator . . . and I can assure you that no good will come of it. Now, as it stands you’ve had a little run-in with the police, and you’ve gotten off lightly. So far. But I have to warn you: that can change at a moment’s notice.” He pushed the second bottle of beer toward the journalist. “It’s nice and cold. Take it.”

  Mahoney picked it up and gulped the contents of the bottle in one swig.

  “Feeling better?”

  Mahoney shook his head.

  “I want to go through your current options. First, how would you feel if your wife saw the photos?”

  “I would be devastated. So would she. And she’d take the kids back to New York, and I’d never see them again.”

  “That’s the reality. OK, what do you think would happen if the New York Times board saw those pictures? How would they react?”

  “They’d fire my ass.”

  “That’s right. They would. And whatever lame excuses you would come up with would cut no ice with them. Can you imagine one of their journalists, a senior award-winning journalist, still being employed after partying with a drunk girl, who’s sixteen by the way, covered in cocaine? That might almost be OK in Europe. But in America? I mean . . . your career would be over. And that’s best-case scenario. Professional ruin. Could you live with that?”

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  “So here’s the thing . . . I’m going to ask you a question. And let’s see where it gets us.”

  “Please don’t play games with me.”

  “I understand completely. It’s only natural to be nervous. Don’t beat yourself up about it. OK, so if you had a choice, what would be your least worst option?”

  “If my wife believed I’d wound up with a girl, drugs all over her, at my apartment, she’d leave and take the kids and I’d never see them again. That’s the absolute worst option for me.”

  “So if the photos were leaked to your paper, how would you explain that?”

  “I’d just resign before it got to that point. And end the investigation.”

  “So you’re prepared to do that?”

  Mahoney thought long and hard. “That would be the lesser of the two evils.”

  “I understand. That sounds reasonable. Except . . .”

  “Except what?”

  “Except the people that hired me don’t just want for you to be shamed and lose your job. That’s really easy stuff. What they want is you out of the game.”

  “Out of the game?”

  “I don’t mean out of journalism. I mean . . . Well, ultimately they want you dead so the investigation dies with you.”

  Mahoney closed his eyes.

  “The photos were just a means of getting your attention. I’ve bought you some time. But the people that sent me need you to die.”

  “Oh Christ.” Mahoney took a deep breath.

  “Your wife would get a sizable payout from your life insurance if you had an accident. And you’d have a lovely obituary in the New York Times, penned by one of your pals, who would wax lyrical about how you were an old-school, hugely talented journalist, a man of principle and all that bullshit. That in itself is better than enduring a lifetime of shame surely.”

  Mahoney stared at him. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I’m getting to that.”

  “What a fucking mess.”

  “Yes, it is.” There was an awkward pause, then Nathan continued. “Tell me, Mark, this investigation, it’s dragged on for months, right?”

  Mahoney nodded.

  “What exactly do you know?”

  “I know major parts of the story. I think I’m close to piecing together other aspects. There are still a few holes I need to fill in.”

  “Percentage terms, how much do you think you’ve got?”

  “I think I’ve got seventy, maybe eighty percent of the story.”

  Nathan glanced around. The handful of other customers had now left the bar. Only a bartender cleaning glasses remained. “Look, I’m not going to make promises . . . but there might be a way for you to save yourself. I’m not guaranteeing anything—far from it—but it might just persuade them that you pose no threat to their operation.”

  “Please don’t tease me . . . This is my life we’re talking about.”

  “I get that. I’m not playing games, Mark. I’m trying to come up with a solution that might just save your bacon.”

  “What exactly would that be?”

  “Tell me about your files. The notes. I’m assuming you have everything saved someplace safe.”

  Mahoney nodded.

  “But being a smart guy, you don’t just save it to the hard drive, do you?”

  Mahoney said nothing.

  “You need to help me, Mark, or the slender chance you’ve got will slip through your fingers. Understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you don’t just save all your writing to the hard drive?”

  “I back it up to the cloud.”

  “Smart guy. Military-level encryption?”

  “Are you saying if you had all my notes, everything pertaining to the investigation, I might get to live?”

  Nathan took a few moments before answering. “I can’t give you my word. But I think your only hope of staying alive is to hand over, just to me, what you’ve got.”

  “And if I don’t? What if I go on the run?”

  “Then the photos will be unleashed on the world. You’ll have crossed a line. And there’s a pretty good chance
you won’t survive the fall.”

  Twenty-Five

  Nathan let the words sink in as Mahoney mulled what he’d said.

  “I have my own line,” Mahoney said.

  “What’s that?”

  “My family.”

  Nathan nodded.

  “They don’t know anything about this investigation.”

  “Tell me more about it.”

  “I love my work. This investigation is very important to me.”

  “As important as your family?”

  “No. Never. But it means a lot to me.”

  “The people that sent me don’t share your enthusiasm for this investigation.”

  “I’m sure they don’t.”

  “Tell me, you say you’ve been piecing this together. What do you know?”

  Mahoney sighed. “You’re probably not the best person for me to share this information with.”

  Nathan smiled.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You. Trying to exert some leverage. I admire that.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Nathan shook his head. “You’re probably looking at me thinking, This is the last face I’m going to see, right?”

  “I don’t want to think about it. Look, I get it. I’m fucked.”

  “You resigned to your fate?”

  “I guess I could go to the police and tell them what happened.”

  “And the people who sent me will release the photos. Upload them to YouTube. You’d be arrested, charged, and your former life would be over.”

  “I’d be alive.”

  “Your threat would be neutralized. And besides, no one would believe the word of a disgraced journalist. Your credibility would be shot. And your family would leave you. Wasn’t that your worst-case scenario?”

  Mahoney closed his eyes as he got quiet again. “Why didn’t you just neutralize me, as you put it?”

  “I could have.”

  “So why haven’t you? Is there some other reason you’re not telling me?”

  Nathan sighed as he looked around the still-empty bar. “You were sent an eight-page document by a man named Nathan Stone. It was an assassination list. And it had a list of twenty people these men planned to kill. Top of the list was Senator Crichton.”

  Mahoney said nothing.

  Nathan stared at Mahoney. “And this was the basis for the start of your investigation. And like such things, it’s grown wings. You’re hearing about a second facility, right?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But those eight pages, they also contained something else. The names on the circulation list. I believe the document was stolen by an NSA contractor, who had intercepted the information from supposedly deleted documents on an NSA server. Which was passed to a journalist . . . a libertarian blogger, I believe, in Washington, DC.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I just do. I know more about this than most people. And I know a thing or two about how this whole thing started.”

  Mahoney stared at him. “I’m wondering, though, why you have access to all this information.”

  “I can’t reveal that at this stage. Tell me, the names on the list. Retired generals, admirals, and Brigadier Jack Sands. What do you know about Sands?”

  “How the hell do you know all this?”

  “Just answer my question.”

  “Well . . . from the information I was given, I started inquiring about him. And he seemed to be the point man for this operation, on the ground in Scotland.”

  “Very good. He was. He’s dead now, though.”

  Mahoney rubbed his face with his hands, as if this were all a bad dream.

  “The others on the list. Five others. You have the names.”

  Mahoney looked at him for what seemed like an eternity. He leaned a bit closer, voice a whisper. “You know an awful lot for a guy that was sent to neutralize me.”

  Nathan said nothing.

  Mahoney pointed at him. “Your voice . . . it’s familiar.”

  Nathan shrugged.

  “Yeah . . . I think I recognize it.”

  Nathan smiled. “I get that a lot.”

  “No, that voice is very familiar. I just can’t place it.”

  Nathan looked around the bar as Mahoney tried to work it out.

  “Fuck. It’s you.”

  Nathan looked at his drink. “Took you long enough.”

  “You were the one. Your face . . . What happened to you? I remember Nathan Stone from an operating base outside Fallujah, but you don’t look like the same man.”

  “I’ve changed.”

  “Oh Jesus Christ . . . So you were sent to kill me?”

  Nathan sighed, crossing his arms as he leaned on the table. “I want to talk about the names on the list.”

  “You sent it to me?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And you killed Crichton?”

  Nathan nodded.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What don’t you understand?”

  “Why would you turn up in person? Surely you knew I’d recognize you.”

  “Yeah . . . eventually.”

  Mahoney shook his head and finished his second beer. “And you put that girl in my apartment.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you’re interested in the names,” Mahoney said, as if in a trance. “The names you sent me.”

  “What else do you know about them? What have you found out?”

  “I know everything about them. Why are you so interested in them? Is that who sent you?”

  Nathan sighed. “When you say ‘everything about them’ . . . do you know where they live, for example?”

  Mahoney began to nod slowly.

  “Their home addresses? These aren’t the sort of people that will be in the phone book.”

  “Yeah, I know where they live.” Mahoney showed his hands. “Hang on just a fucking minute . . . Why exactly do you want to know where they live?”

  “I’ve got a proposition for you. Quid pro quo.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Mahoney asked.

  “I want you to go back to your apartment. Take your wife and kids out for a pizza or something. Don’t take your phone with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “They’ll be listening in.”

  “What else?”

  Nathan leaned in closer. “Tell your family to go back to New York, something has just come up. Say you’ll see them again very soon.”

  “Then what?”

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  “When?”

  “Tell them to take the first flight out. Drive them to the airport. Go back to your apartment. Then we talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About a plan I have that just might save your life.”

  Twenty-Six

  Mahoney was in a daze when he left the bar alone. It wasn’t just the booze. It was the shock. The terror that was rippling through his body. He walked the ten minutes back through downtown Toronto to his apartment after his terrifying encounter with Nathan Stone. He rode the elevator. His mind was racing. The same elevator Stone would’ve taken. And the same elevator that girl had taken, the one who had wound up on his sofa.

  The more he thought about it all, the more he was starting to doubt his sanity. He felt as if he were losing his mind. His solid, respectable, middle-class life, the terrific salary, the accolades that came with the job, and all the trappings of being a successful American journalist.

  Mahoney’s mind went back to the targets on the kill list. He had checked and rechecked and found that all the remaining targets were still alive. He had reached out to the Feds to let them know but had never heard back. He was sorely tempted to contact the targets himself. But he was still unsure what to do, as he was still trying to authenticate the document Stone had sent to him.

  Mahoney felt empty, his heart in his mouth, as he opened his apartment door. “Hey, I’m back,” he said.

  His wife hugg
ed him tight. “You smell like a brewery.”

  “I’m sorry. Had to have a drink after work with a colleague.”

  “I’ve been trying to call you.”

  “You know what? I left my cell at work.”

  “Mark, how is that possible? You never go anywhere without it.”

  “I know . . . The thing’s virtually attached to me. Just spaced out today, I guess. Crazy. So have you guys eaten?”

  His wife shook her head. “We’re starving.”

  “Good, so am I. Who wants pizza?”

  The kids roared their approval and they headed out to one of Mahoney’s favorite restaurants, Figo’s, on Adelaide Street West. It wasn’t long before they were chowing down on one of the most phenomenal pies. But his wife could tell he was distracted.

  She touched the back of his hand. “You OK, Mark?” she asked.

  “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You just seem . . . not yourself. Did we come at a bad time?”

  “It’s never a bad time to see you guys. I love it. But I’m working on a deadline on a pretty important story. You know how it is. And to compound matters, the new executive editor has asked me to talk him through it.”

  “That’s great.”

  Mahoney nodded. “It is. But I’m just . . . I don’t know. It’s good, but I feel like I’m drowning in this investigation. Really, really high-level stuff.”

  “Can you say what it’s about?”

  “I’m sorry, honey. I wish I could. It’s a national security story, I can say that. But that’s all.”

  His wife squeezed his hand. “We’re getting in your way already. I can see that.”

  “I need space and time to focus on this story. It’s a real quick turnaround. I feel like I’m juggling different things, meeting up with you guys, my beautiful family, deadlines, you know.”

  His wife smiled. “Honey, there’s something wrong. I know it.”

  Mahoney ate a slice of pizza and dabbed his mouth with the napkin. “I wish you’d let me know, and I could’ve said maybe another week or two, and that would be perfect. It’s my fault. I should’ve given you a heads-up.”

  “Honey, I love you, and if that’s what you need, we’ll head back to New York. It’s only a short plane ride away. It’s not a big deal.”