She lurched back as if he had physically struck her. Slapped a hand to her breast. Swore under her breath.
“Ever hear of Duncan Spears? Or Blanche Chevalier?”
She slowly shook her head, mumbled a prayer, shivered, hugged herself, and took in all the marks of a man who had been through the wars. “I want to see you.”
She approached, tentatively at first, then more boldly, and with the guile only a woman could apply, tugged his shirt out from his waistband and rolled it up to expose the bandaging. A few drops of dried blood and pus had seeped through the gauze. The position of the wound was high up, just above his nipple and a little toward his right, the surrounding skin inflamed and raw. She reached out trembling fingertips but did not make contact. Her eyelashes lowered. Her lips moved as if appealing to the many gods. Christ, Vishna, Yahweh, Buddha, Mohammad, Zeus. Heathen though he was, he didn’t care which, so long as she covered them all. She lowered his shirt.
She didn’t back off but stood erect and unafraid. At length, she said in a lilting voice, “You’re supposed to take a gun to a knife fight.”
“Funny thing about that ….” He started to laugh. It was a hilarious laugh. A crazed laugh. The burbling laugh of a demented man. “I did bring a gun.” And then he laughed some more, sounding even crazier.
She clucked her tongue as if to say he had been a naughty boy in a playground brawl, one he started himself and lost. “You’re an unlucky man to be around, Jack Coyote.”
“I’ve been trying to tell you that. You haven’t been listening.”
“Oh, I’ve been listening.” She considered all the snippets of information he told her along with other things she already knew but didn’t know that she knew until this moment, when everything became clear. “You did something terrible, didn’t you? Something you’re not telling me. You brought this on yourself? And because of you, people are dead.”
He deserved her acrimony. He welcomed it. He was a man who reveled in self-flagellation. The harsher, the better. “Lay it on.”
Her eyes hardened. The romantic moment between them had broken into a shattered mirror that lay scattered at their feet, each fragment reflecting a man and a woman standing close to each other yet not trusting each other or anybody else. She was angry with him again. Probably she would always be angry with him for being the cause—wittingly or unwittingly—of Milly’s death. He couldn’t blame her.
He caught her wrist in his good fist and dragged her towards the bedroom.
She reluctantly tripped along, giving up the fight before it began. “Is this the part where you ravage me?”
“We’ve gone beyond the ravaging point.” He hunted for a suitcase or travel bag, located one in the closet, brought it down, and tossed it onto her unmade bed, unzipping the top.
“What are you doing?” she said uncertainly.
“Not me. You. You’re packing. Going home. To your folks. Boston, right?”
“Brookline.”
He went into the bathroom, came away with an armful of personal items, and tossed them into the bag. “Resign once you reach safety.” He rummaged in her dresser drawers and grabbed handfuls of clothing.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Her voice was still calm even if she wasn’t.
“I did. You weren’t listening.”
She trailed him from the closet to the dresser to the bathroom as he gathered more things, and finally snapped. “Condescending bastard!” She placed herself in front of him, blocking his way, royally pissed off. “Stop scaring the crap out of me or I’ll … I’ll ….” She circled a clutched fist in the air.
He gazed down at her, amused, suppressing a smile. “What will you do?”
“I’ve been taking kickboxing lessons. I’m pretty good at it, too. I can knock that silly grin off your face and break your balls so you won’t be able to use them without thinking of me. Laugh all you want.” Her proud chin lifted.
“You’re not safe here. You’ve probably been hacked, too. Your company laptop. Your personal laptop. Your cell phone. Do you have a landline?”
She stood mute, not quite as feisty as before, and puzzled. “What are you trying to say?”
“I have a theory about Harry. He was probably hacked like I was hacked. He was probably onto something like I was onto something. He’s not on special assignment like everyone’s been told. He’s been renditioned. The night I was set up? The night he didn’t show up at the Club? He was in a crash.”
“I know,” she said quietly. “We were briefed.”
“Did you also know Annie was told to stay quiet if she ever wants to see her husband alive again?”
“Who told her that?” She almost didn’t want to know.
“Camilla gave her a friendly call. She didn’t put it in quite those terms. Not as a threat. More like a caution. As if she knew something classified that couldn’t be revealed.”
“Jesus.” And then, “You don’t think …?”
“He must’ve found out something he shouldn’t have. Or asked the wrong questions. Or talked to the wrong person.”
“Like you did.”
He gripped her arms with both fists and shook her. “You have to go. It’s not safe for you here.”
“You’re hurting me, Jack. You’re scaring me.”
“He’s been neutralized. Maybe he’s already dead. Or wished he were. I don’t want them to neutralize you. I want you to get out while you can. Before it’s too late.”
“This isn’t a spy movie.”
“Oh no?”
He gathered her against him. She went quietly, her heart beating against his chest. He gazed down at her almond-fresh face and tenderly brushed back her hair. She usually wore it up in a clasp, but now it fell in smooth waves past her shoulder blades, a graceful waterfall of silkiness slipping through his fingers. She surrendered to his embrace, her face awash with concern, her parted lips quivering. He kissed them, harder than before. She responded this time. The small kiss turned into an unsatisfied longing. She was breathing quickly now, tiny puffs of air flowing past her lips, the fragrances of lavender and vanilla lifting from her skin.
He whispered in her ear. “He killed two women right in front of me. Probably the same man who killed Milly. You heard about the woman in the Metro?”
“You were there?”
“And another woman in Virginia. When I looked in his eyes … when I saw what was there … I don’t think he has a soul. Listen to me. If you ever meet a dark man, a pretty man, a man with a grin and a foreign accent, run like hell and don’t look back.”
Aneila shivered. She was a compact girly girl. Slight, slender, precious, yielding, and ripe for the taking. They didn’t mean anything, these kisses. Both were responding to the madness, this petty drama wrapped up in terror, and arising from that terror, a need to connect, to seek comfort, to feel fully alive, to make the moment count for something. They broke off their kisses. Her depthless eyes blinked up into his, telling him she trusted him, believed in him. She shouldn’t have been so trusting or believing.
“Harry knew something. He was about to blow the whistle. He’ll never see sunlight again.”
“Lindsey-Marie Moffat,” she said, thinking aloud, “Harry’s assistant―”
“I think you’re safe, but―”
“She probably knows what he was working on.” She slithered out of his grip and stepped away, turning her back to him, thinking, evaluating, and arriving at a decision, her shoulders rising, her posture straightening. She swung back around. “I’m staying. I can handle myself. Harry wasn’t political. He didn’t know how to suck up. I’m a team player. They won’t do anything to me. They think I’m timid. They think they can push me around.”
“Anything but,” he said, meaning it. “Still―”
“Still nothing.” She shut her eyes, weighing reason against fear. When she reopened them, she said, “They hired your replacement. Name of Wade Manning. I don’t like him. He’s a contractor. I saw the paper
work. His services don’t come cheap. Three, four times what they pay me. Probably two times what they paid you.”
“You have to pack up. You have to leave town.”
“I won’t.” Two fierce words accompanied by a stiff upper lip.
There was no point in arguing with her. She had made up her mind. At the door, they exchanged a parting kiss. She said, “What will you do? Where will you go?”
“I’ve already been to hell. Can’t get much worse than that.” He tore himself away and headed toward the fire exit. He didn’t look back.
34
Annapolis, Maryland
Wednesday, July 30
WHEN JOHN SESSIONS prepared to climb into his car, something small but hard jutted against his ribs. Instinctively he showed his hands and warily glanced around.
Jack Coyote was standing to his rear, clutching the grip of a semiautomatic weapon. Nothing showed on his unreadable face. He motioned his head. “Get in. I won’t ask twice.”
John never argued with an armed man, not that he had ever before been held at gunpoint. He lowered himself inside.
“Key fob.”
John deposited the fob into his outstretched palm.
Coyote calmly engaged the automatic buttons to lower the windows and unlock the passenger door. The latter action triggered a double beep that echoed against the walls of the company garage. After withdrawing the gun barrel from John’s ribs, he swung the door shut but kept the gun trained on him through the open window. He went around and climbed into the passenger seat. Sliding the key into the ignition, he nodded ahead, his face still unreadable, granite hard, implacable. “Shut the windows and start driving.”
The gun was still pointed at him. Coyote’s hand was rock steady. The man he once thought of as a kid had aged ten years in less than a month, his face tougher, his eyes crueler. Bruises un-prettied his rugged features. He looked wan and exhausted. Wild-eyed and desperate. Desperate enough to kill for sport. “You really wouldn’t shoot that thing.”
“Don’t test a man with nothing to lose.”
John put the car in gear and backed out of the parking space. Several miles distant from HID headquarters, after turning and circling and taking evasive measures at Coyote’s sharp commands, he pulled over and parked on a busy commercial avenue crowded with pedestrians.
Coyote said, “Can I trust you?”
“Not when you’re pointing a gun at me.”
He considered, slid his finger from the trigger, and set the semiautomatic onto his lap, where it remained as an open threat.
“You look terrible, by the way,” John said.
Coyote chortled. “You could say I’ve been having several bad weeks.”
“Escaped felons don’t fare well, so I’ve heard.”
Again the chortle. “I’ve become a moving target. Not in the literal sense, since a bullet would’ve been too clean and too …” He searched for a word. “Heavy-handed. Inconvenient. Instead, they came gunning for me with more unpleasant methods. Picking winners and losers. Milly was the loser. In a way, so was I. But she never gets to reenter the game, whereas I do.”
“You think this is a fucking game?”
Coyote clucked his tongue. “Oh, John, John. You haven’t been paying attention. Of course, it’s a game. Without a gameboard or a set of rules. I’m learning as I go along. I’m a quick study. I have to be.” He lifted his forearms in a gesture of surrender, his smile grim, his wink mocking. “I am what you see. A man without a future. Cut down in the prime of his life but still breathing.”
“Why hijack me? Why not approach me man-to-man?”
“Oh, so sorry. Guess I should have realized this was a gentlemanly game. Like checkers or chess. First your turn, then mine. But you mistake me. Call this a friendly rendezvous, drama attending. I need a friend. An ally, as it were.” He laughed the laugh of a man about to go over the edge. “I know. A bad way to start a partnership of trust. But as you see, I’ve been left with few choices and fewer friends. I had to see what you were made of. I had to look into your eyes and take the measure of the man.”
John angled his head, hesitant to ask. “What did you see?”
“Let’s say I’m willing to take a chance.”
John pondered, staring through the windshield, weighing the knowable against the unknowable, and making a choice, rightly or wrongly. “All right. Who should start?”
“You discovered the HID databases had been breached. It turned out to be me. Am I right?”
John smiled before admitting. “One of Chris’s guys found the hack.”
“Name of Duncan Spears?”
John studied him from the corners of his eyes. “How did you know?”
“I found him. This morning. He’s dead. Hanged himself from a light fixture in his apartment. By the smell of him, two, three days ago. I only know he was still alive last Friday.”
John questioned him with raised eyebrows.
“He was hacking me while I was hacking HID. Comical, don’t you think?”
“How do I know you didn’t kill him and make it look like a suicide?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I denied it, so I’ll spare both of us the indignity.”
“Who are you working for? Russia? China? Or―”
“The United States government.” He paused to let the fact sink in. “You heard me.”
John looked baffled. Then stunned. He thought it over. “CIA? Or FBI?”
“For me to know and you to find out.”
John inhaled a steadying breath before slowly letting it out. “I had an interesting conversation with Frances Hynes this morning. Know her?”
“She’s with MonCom, isn’t she? Monetary Compliance Network? I’ve never had the pleasure.”
John eyed him with a sidelong glance. “Are you all right? You seem unwell.”
“The understatement of the year. But pray, do go on. I’m on the edge of my seat.”
John could see some of the physical damage afflicting the man. But it went deeper than bodily harm. It was the disillusionment of his innocence and the desolation of his soul. He was a lost man who might never find himself again.
“She’s deputy director of their international unit. Met her only once before at some forgettable event. Maybe she thought she could confide in me. Whatever the reason, she posed an interesting question. Not a question precisely. A supposition. She was digging for information in a roundabout way. She wanted to talk about you. Mentioned your name in passing but then asked about Harry, and whether it was true what she’d heard. That he was a whistleblower.”
Coyote wasn’t terribly overblown with shock or dismay.
“I found her question interesting,” John continued. “For two reasons. Make that three. Firstly, there was nothing on the radar … not on my radar … that Harry was in our sights. I don’t know about Harry’s misdeeds, if there were any. As for you, I can only assume you’re a run-of-the-mill killer.”
Coyote chuckled. “You never let on that you have flair for the obvious. And the second reason?”
“And the second reason,” he said with a heavy sigh. “She was on a fishing expedition. Which meant something had come to her attention she couldn’t quite get a handle on. She wouldn’t say what, but it was easy to figure out. You were denied bail because you were considered a flight risk. Something about the Cayman Islands and fifty million dollars. True?” He took Coyote’s silence as confirmation. “I began to wonder if there was more than met the eye? Were you running an end game around the agency? Was there something I didn’t know? My first thought was that if there had been anything, Camilla would have confided in me. Or I would have heard rumors. Neither occurred. Milly’s death was tragic. It hurt like hell. But you were one of us, too. That was the hardest fact to take in … that you turned on us.”
“The agency turned on me,” Coyote said pleasantly.
“Why the hell would we?” John said.
“My, aren’t we sensitive.”
H
e considered Coyote, his unflappability, his absolute certainty about everything. “Which brings me to my third reason. You found out something, didn’t you?”
“Does Spinnaker sound familiar?”
John brushed it aside with a flap of his hand. “We could have talked our way around it, dealt with the blowback, covered our asses, endured the rounds of Congressional hearings. And gone on. But you found something else. Something explosive. What was it?” When Coyote didn’t answer, he pressed. “Were you about to blow the whistle? Was Harry? Were you in it together?”
“We didn’t compare notes.”
“What did you have? Or think you had?”
“Have.” Coyote let that sink in. “In the present tense. But that would be telling. Besides, you already know, don’t you, you son of a bitch.”
“You are a shit.”
Coyote grinned as if he were in on a joke only he got. “I have always admired the loyalty of my many friends for putting up with me. Oh, wait. I don’t have any friends. That I can count on, anyway. But I will say this. I am what you would call a realist. Better to be a realist than a dreamer who knows two and two equals four but will argue to the death they really equal five.”
John studied the physical manifestations of Coyote’s suffering. “What exactly happened to you? It looks like―”
“I put this question to you. How many times is a man given the chance to save the life of a beautiful lady? One time? Two? Three? And what are the odds those chances would occur within, say, thirty days? One in a million? Or trillion? How about quadrillion? Guess. Go on, guess. What, no guess? In that case, I’ll tell you. I won the lottery. I’ve been given three chances and failed every fucking time. But don’t worry about me. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Me? Why me?”
“My, aren’t we touchy.”
The man either came into the world insane or was pushed to it. If he had been born that way, he hid it very well until recently. Leading John to the only conclusion left. “What are you trying to tell me?”
Coyote shrugged wearily. “That moral high ground you’re always so proud to stand on? — my country, do or die. Whether I like it or not, I’ve been forced to take my own stand. But what about you? How has it been working out for you so far?”
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